Rumblings About Noise

"A second battle of Gettysburg" is what AFL-CIO Executive George Taylor hyperbolically calls the U.S. Department of Labor hearings that start this week in Washington. At issue: regulation of the amount of noise in U.S. factories, a billion-dollar problem that another AFL-CIO official terms "the most ubiquitous hazard in the workplace."

Since 1971, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recommended, but barely enforced, a maximum of 90 decibels--the sound of a heavy truck--throughout an eight-hour workday. OSHA wants to keep to that level. The Environmental Protection Agency and the labor unions want the limit reduced to 85, the din of a busy street. Many industries are strongly opposed to such regulation and claim it would be ruinous. The noise level now registers about 105 decibels next to the looms in a textile mill, and 115 close to an automobile factory's high-speed metal presses. An OSHA study has estimated that it would cost $13.5 billion for 19 major industries to comply with a decibel level of 90, and $31 billion to meet the lower level of 85. President Ford has publicly asked: "Is it worth [that much] to reduce the level of occupational noise?"

Hearing Loss. On the opposing side of the OSHA hearings, the EPA has worked out statistics to show that the risk of hearing loss is twice as high at 90 decibels as at 85. Both the EPA and the unions argue that noise can also cause cardiovascular problems, partial loss of vision and mental disturbance.

Aside from the effects of noise, there is sharp disagreement on how those damages should be prevented. OSHA recommends that industry provide acoustical shielding and other engineering changes, and that it rotate work shifts to limit the number of hours an employee can work in a noisy area. Industry argues that a far easier and more economical method would be to require workers to wear earplugs or muffs. Labor retorts that "personal protection," as it is called, can be dangerous. Says the AFL-CIO's Sheldon W. Samuels: "There is a documented case of a man killed by a forklift because with his ear muffs on he did not hear the warning bell." Samuels also argues that plugs "dehumanize a worker half his waking day. If industry thinks they are going to make our people animals, they're nuts."

The final rulings will probably not be issued until this fall, and real results may take years longer. But if OSHA has its way, workers will have one protective measure fairly soon. Among the agency's top priorities is a regulation that workers exposed to more than 85 decibels be given periodic hearing tests.

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